NSW Liberals abandon court challenge over council nomination debacle

The NSW Liberals have abandoned their audacious bid to take the NSW Electoral Commission to court after the party missed the deadline to nominate 140 candidates for next month’s local government elections.

The backdown is the latest embarrassing instalment in the party’s extraordinary administrative bungle which saw it fail to submit nominations for candidates across 16 council areas.

In a statement on Tuesday night, the party said it had “received advice from Senior Counsel in relation to the irregularities in the process for nomination of local government candidates conducted by the NSW Electoral Commission”.

NSW Opposition leader Mark Speakman backed legal action against the NSW Electoral Commission. Credit: Kate Geraghty

“Having given consideration to that advice the division will not be taking any legal proceedings,” the statement said.

NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman backed the party’s desperate legal bid to force the commission to reopen nominations for the September 14 local government elections after it missed the deadline last Wednesday.

Speakman on Monday said he supported pursuing every possible option to help candidates who missed out on nomination as long there was a “reasonable legal basis” to do so.

Richard Shields has been sacked as NSW Liberal Party state director.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

The debacle saw the party’s state director Richard Shields sacked, before the NSW Liberals switched blame to the electoral commission, arguing it did not give sufficient notice about the closing date for nominations.

The NSW Electoral Commission twice dismissed a request from Liberal HQ to reopen nominations, prompting the party’s president Don Harwin to threaten legal action if the electoral agency did not agree.

Harwin was seeking a seven-day grace period, saying the mistake went to “the heart of ensuring a fair and free election” and the “integrity of our democracy”.

Amid widespread anger in the party, former federal director Brian Loughnane will undertake a short forensic review of how the debacle occurred.

The review will be done over the next two weeks and be finished before a meeting of the federal executive on September 2. The federal body will consider whether placing the NSW division into administration via a full intervention is necessary, or whether imposing new staff is sufficient redress.

In federal question time on Tuesday, Labor minister Amanda Rishworth mocked the NSW Liberal Party’s nominations failure, describing it as “a comedy of errors”.

“The Liberal Party are now blaming the independent umpire, threatening legal action against the NSW Electoral Commissioner for their incompetence,” she said.

“Now, I’m sure that the NSW Liberal Party is a little disappointed that Scott Morrison is no longer prime minister because, of course, he could have secretly appointed himself as the NSW Electoral Commission and overturned the decision.”

Manager of opposition business Paul Fletcher unsuccessfully tried to have the question and answer ruled out of order.

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